Battle Royale: Miriam vs. Scope and Sequence

I have my good friend Joel Linscheid to thank for the progress I'm currently making for lesson planning for my U.S. history classes. I was at a sort of stand-still, or maybe running in circles... There's no limit to the number of books to read, documentaries to watch, lesson plans to peruse, teachers' testimonies to be inspired by... But when it comes to the question of what I will be doing during minute 67 of class session 5, and minute 84 of class session 18, and why I will be doing those specific activities at those specific times, the decisions to be made are many and overwhelming.

I had already made many aborted attempts to tackle that problem when Joel, discussing the jazz history class he'll teach this fall, mentioned in passing, "Really, the least I should do is have an outline made up of what I want them to know by the end of the semester."

YES!!!

My education textbooks have led me astray with all of their "graphic organizer" red herrings. They have provided me with a multitude of lesson planning formats, but none quite so excellent and effective, for me, as an outline.

I didn't always grasp the beauty of outlines. One of my most vivid memories from my elementary school education involved a homework assignment of making an outline. I had asked Mom for help with my homework, which never went smoothly. If I was at the point of asking for help, I was usually ready to throw a fit as well. Since I didn't understand the assignment, I assumed that either the assignment was unfair or incredibly pointless (lack of ability on my part was, according to me, out of the question).

I let loose on Mom with a tirade about the idiocy of this so-called "outline," which I had never heard of and assumed to be a torture device invented by my teacher. The instructions for the assignment seemed vague and random. What was this with the ABCs and 123s and Roman numerals? Who even uses Roman numerals, anyway? What exactly was I trying to do here?

Mom was always very patient with me (I even noticed that fact when I was in the mood to be very unreasonable, although I don't think I ever thanked her for it). As my whining rant trailed off, she used a soothing tone to help me understand that the purpose of the outline is to help you organize information in a shortened form, that the ABCs and numbers don't matter as much as understanding how the information fits together in each part of a story or speech.

With admiration in her voice, she he told me the story of a college friend who could simultaneously listen to a lecture and write out his notes in a concise outline format... an inspiring example, indeed.

It took me a long moment and several attempts at explanation for the meaning of this information to sink in. You know, I think it might have been the first time I realized that education's intent was not to challenge me with a series of obnoxious hoops to jump through, but to give me a set of legitimately useful tools for life. The outline and I have been friendly partners ever since.

The outline gives me a tool to overcome the root of my lesson planning problem, which may be the same problem that I have deciding what to parts of my life write about in my blog. Do I choose to write about the people in my life? Do I restrict my essays to challenging questions of values and beliefs? Do I focus on the abstractions of political and social consciousness, or the concrete day-to-day tasks on which I spend my time?

How do I justify allowing car repairs and outlines to occupy the same page that once discussed water rights in Israel-Palestine?

The same kinds of questions have haunted recent generations of historians, myself included. From whose perspective should we study history? Which information should be accepted as standard, need-to-know facts? Who do students need to know about, and which of their actions made up "real" history? Who and what gets emphasized, and who and what will be overlooked (either accidentally or intentionally) in the process? In the past, when U.S. history book information was restricted to a small set of white men and European-centered, European-style wars, these decisions were much easier to make.

Not that that wasn't legitimate history... It was just unfortunately a very small slice of what was actually in our past. The umbrella of what currently comprises "history" attempts to overarch a variety of perspectives, social and racial groups, and myriad conflicts and interactions.

I think that this is for the most part a great improvement on the study of history. But it gives textbook writers and teachers an impossible task of presenting and organizing historical information and concepts. It's a stressful quandary for someone like me who would like to think that it is possible to do all of history justice, but who tends already to have unrealistic expectations for students abilities and classroom time-use.

After much thought, reading, sketching, lists, outlines, and sticky notes... I still haven't come up with a structure for my class that I am completely happy with. In spite of the themes and chapters that I have laid out for the coming semester, I'm guessing that my history teaching will tend to be a mishmash of the mundane and the idealistic concepts, the day-to-day realities and the turning-point events, the majority parties and the underground movements of politics. I'm hoping that my students come out of it with some idea of the big picture, and aware that we've only barely brushed the surface of what there is to know about history.

At any rate, time is up. I will head to school next week clutching my outline, and pretending to be confident in my abilities to help my students achieve such an outcome.